Easter Sunday is formal day wear season to the extent that formal or semi-formal day wear still has a place in North America. At any rate, if you attend a formal church in a large metropolis, you might not be the only man in a black jacket, striped trousers, dress shirt with a colored body and a white collar and a Macclesfield necktie. Emphasis on the word "might" please.
Strollers are more American than morning coats in my opinion, or at least they were. Other than Easter of course, one might barely be able to wear the black jacket to a funeral without making a spectacle of himself. Past that, unless a man has occasion to attend diplomatic receptions regularly or wears it downtown for no particular reason once in a while, the opportunities are limited to the rare wedding that is formal enough. Which of course reminds me that the Royal Wedding is coming up and the invitations specify "uniform, morning coat or lounge suit." If, like me, your military service days are past, attending the Wedding might give a man reason to break his out. After all, lounge suits are acceptable so surely a stroller would be OK in addition to the specified morning coat. On the other hand, my invitation never arrived so the opportunity will be lost. Oh well.
But Easter is stroller season to the extent we still have one.
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Stephen Colbert has inspired me to wear my tuxedo on Fridays.
Your thoughts?
Happy Easter Will! It's interesting that the stroller is still alive and well in the USA. Ithink even a lounge suit is now seen as OTT in many British churches and the anorak and jumpers rule. I can recall, in London in the 1980s, some senior civil servants still wearing strollers to meetings with Ministers and some barristers also still wore them but those days are just about past and now strollers are confined to a few in the hotel/catering and funeral businesses.
You must be talking about the morning coat NJS. Most British funeral directors still have their staff in the morning coat for funerals, not strollers. And large hotels (not modern travelodges) have their valet-butlers in morning coat and their waiters in tailcoats (I did 6 years in hotels in Manchester).
What, pray tell, is a "stroller"? And what is a "lounge suit". Compare and contrast.
Roger - I had in mind desk staff in hotels and funeral directors off duty in the 'store'. The funeral directors that I last saw on duty at a funeral were in rather poor frock coats.
I have wanted a stroller for some time, and I find myself now in possession of most of the basic parts: checked pants, black double-breasted jacket, appropriate black shoes. My neck outgrew my only contrast collar shirt so I'll have to get a new one, and I have my eye on some nice wedding ties.
My only question, then, is this: what socks should one wear with a stroller?
Match your trousers Horatio.
That's what I thought. Thank you.
(I got thrown off track by reading too much about formal/semi-formal wear, which, upon reflection, normally features black trousers.)
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